Murder by Artifact (Five Star Mystery Series) (11 page)

“No!”

Theo was satisfied by Nina’s shocked gasp. The loop was complete.

“I’m on my way in to town now.” Irreverent and irrepressible as usual, Nina’s words came out in a torrent. “Take notes until I get there.”

Before Theo disconnected, her own unruly thoughts bounced in another direction. Since Calvin was the local undertaker fulltime and only the mayor part-time, would he prepare her body himself? “Hey, Nina,” she said. “I just had a ghoulish thought. Do you suppose Calvin will embalm Doreen and then keep her on display in his office? You know, like Evita Peron?”

“That is awful.” Nina laughed. “It would be easier to incinerate her and carry the ashes around in his car. I know for a fact they have some beautiful urns at Doreen’s Gift Shoppe.”

Tony needed to talk to Calvin. The mayor needed to account for his whereabouts. J.B. told him he had tried to deliver the news at five-thirty in the morning. No one answered the bell. Wade tried several times later with the same result. It wasn’t until after nine, when the housekeeper arrived, that the news of Doreen’s death had been delivered. Evidently, Pansy reluctantly ushered Wade into Calvin’s home office and the mayor eventually joined him.

According to Wade, when the mayor did arrive, his hair was wet and he hadn’t put on his tie. Although he hadn’t managed to produce any tears, Calvin had honestly seemed stunned by Wade’s news.

Tony turned the Blazer onto the mayor’s long driveway and slowly drove toward the house, trying to marshal his thoughts. He needed to offer condolences and run an investigation at the same time.

The sight of Calvin wrestling a large cardboard box from the back of a gleaming white hearse distracted him. Tony pulled the Blazer to a stop and sat and watched.

The hearse was parked in the driveway just in front of the steps. Calvin clutched some smaller boxes with his left arm as he dragged the large box toward the front door with his right, letting it bump up the steps. Another box sat next to the door.

Tony eased the Blazer forward. Seeing the man’s lips moving, Tony lowered his window to listen. Grief made people do peculiar things. Calvin was not acting like Calvin. For the first time Tony could remember, he had removed his suit coat and loosened his tie. As a rule, the mayor made no concession to the sweltering heat. That wasn’t all that seemed out of character.

Calvin was singing, belting out a gospel hymn with verve and obvious joy. Pausing, he used a knee to thump the largest carton like he was playing the drums. The man had a nice voice.

Intrigued, Tony climbed out of his vehicle and approached him. “Can I help?”

Startled, Calvin’s singing stopped mid-note, and he whirled around, releasing his hold on the large box. That sent him falling backwards over the fallen carton. When he crashed to the ground, the boxes he managed to hang on to flew from his arms and bounced on the sidewalk. One of them cracked Tony in the knee.

Tony bent over and massaged his wounded knee. The box was heavy cardboard, and the bump surprisingly painful.

Calvin climbed to his size-sixteen feet and began rubbing his wounded elbow. A welcoming smile illuminated his plain face.

Tony wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Calvin’s real smile before. Countless times he had witnessed the ceremonial stretching of his thin lips. This was a real smile, one that not only exposed Calvin’s big, square, horse teeth, but one that put a sparkle in his eyes.

“Good morning, Sheriff.”

“Mayor.” Tony tossed the carton that had assaulted him on top of the growing pile. “What are the boxes for?”

“Just thought it would be a good time to pack up a few of Doreen’s things. Give ’em to charity, you know.”

The mayor’s jovial attitude rendered Tony speechless. He was expecting, if not crippling grief, at least shock and numbness. Suspicion reared its ugly head.

“I have to ask you not to do that. In fact, I don’t want you to touch any of her things. This is still a murder investigation, and Wade is on his way now with a warrant to search this house.”

“Am I a suspect?” Calvin’s cornflower blue eyes widened and his shoulders drooped like a child denied a carnival treat.

“You ought to know my job is to ask lots of questions in a case like this. It’s nothing personal.” He pulled out his notebook. “Would you mind answering a few questions for me now?”

“Ask away.” Calvin’s expression looked like a smirk. “I have nothing to hide.”

Wade arrived, search warrant in hand.

“Excellent timing,” said Tony.

Wade’s proud grin was tempered by the solemn occasion. “What are all these boxes for?”

Irritation colored the mayor’s voice. “They are for you to stack up right there.” Calvin pointed out the designated area and dragged one more carton out of the hearse and added it to the collection.

“Okay, Mayor.” Tony waved to the front door. “Why don’t we go inside? I have several questions in need of serious answers.”

Calvin nodded and led the way into the formal parlor.

Tony frowned at the mayor’s back. “You didn’t expect your wife to be home last night?”

“No.” Calvin folded his long legs and more or less dropped into the chair, all signs of his previous enjoyment vanished. “She was supposed to be off on another of her buying trips. It’s really not very unusual for her to be on the road.”

“And you were where last night?” Tony made a couple of entries in his notebook. “Starting at five.”

“Why, here, of course.” Calvin turned his face toward Tony. He seemed very careful not to make eye contact. “Well, I got here at six. I was at the mortuary until then.”

“And you were here all night?”

Calvin nodded.

Tony felt his stomach tighten. J.B. said he had been here at five-thirty in the morning, and Tony believed the deputy’s story. The mayor was lying.

“So when I came by at six, seven and eight, where were you then?” Wade consulted his notes. “I rang the bell and dialed your telephone number each time.”

“I must have been in the shower.” Calvin steepled his fingers and leaned forward. His eyes showed no emotion. “I love to take showers.”

Accepting the blatant lie for the moment, Tony and Wade made a cursory check of the house. Tony saw nothing obviously out of place. He learned more than he wanted to know. The mayor and his wife shared the huge house, not the bedroom.

Covering most of the second floor, Doreen’s bedroom suite was the size of a cottage. It consisted of a sitting room, a sleeping room, a bathroom most deluxe hotels would envy and a walk-in closet the size of a double garage.

Nothing appeared to have been disturbed in the suite. If anything was missing, Calvin didn’t seem to know about it. Tony would bet that Pansy, who doubtless spent hours each week cleaning in here, would be a better source of information.

She wasn’t.

After their uninformative conversation with Pansy, Wade left.

Tony confronted Calvin again, sensing the man would talk more one-to-one. “Out with it.”

Calvin twitched but didn’t refute Tony’s assumption. Finally, he reached into his wallet and removed a receipt for a room in a chain motel in nearby Pigeon Forge. Before he relinquished it, he looked directly into Tony’s eyes, “I need you to swear you’ll keep my secret, especially from your wife.”

Unsurprised the man had secrets, Tony nodded.

“I was in Pigeon Forge until it was too late to safely drive home.” Calvin’s voice shook slightly. “It’s not what you think, at least not this time.” He cleared his throat several times.

Fascinated, Tony watched the mayor in silence.

“I am taking private quilting lessons from a woman over there.”

“Why?” The word fell out of his mouth. He never would have guessed this secret.

“I want to finish some quilts my mother started.” Calvin twitched again.

For a moment, Tony couldn’t respond. He cleared his throat. “What I meant is why not have Theo teach you?”

“It’s a matter of pride. I want to be accomplished before I ask if I can join her quilting group.” His big hands flopped to his sides. “Your wife is my quilting goddess. I’m not fit to share the air she breathes.”

Tony stared. Keeping this story from Theo might kill him. If she learned about it from someone else, she might kill him. Either way, he hoped the mayor would call her soon.

On his way back to his office, Tony stopped at Doreen’s Flower and Gift Shoppe. His hand barely touched the handle before it opened abruptly. His eyes dropped to the woman holding it open.

“Are you closing the shop?”

“No. Why would I close the shop?” Tony stared at Bernice Osborne’s tired face and thought Doreen’s only fulltime employee fit the description of downtrodden, desperate, and impoverished. She raised eight, mostly normal, children with minimal support from their father, Slow.

Slow Osborne worked odd jobs, badly, and was usually hired because people felt sorry for his family. The local churches bore the brunt of his services.

“Then, why are you here?” Bernice’s words jarred him back to the present.

“I thought I’d ask if you knew of anyone Doreen argued with lately.”

Bernice stuck her fingers into her tight gray curls and closed her eyes. “There’s Calvin, of course, Pansy, your aunt Martha, a few customers I ain’t seen before.” Her eyes widened behind the thick old-fashioned glasses she wore. “Can’t honestly say I haven’t wanted to kill her.” Her tired eyes stared up into his. “But she pays regular and the checks don’t bounce.”

Tony accepted her claim. “I haven’t seen Warren around lately.” Bernice’s youngest child was a familiar sight in the county jail, mostly for public intoxication.

“Warren?” The name rolled slowly off her tongue as she considered his statement. “Oh, you mean my boy Speedy. I forgot what I wrote on the birth papers.”

She clearly expected he’d understand losing track of eight names, so he nodded. “Okay, so bring me up to speed on Speedy.”

Bernice didn’t react to his play on words. “He’s away.”

“Where?”

Speedy picked that moment to let himself in through the back door. “Got you a burger, Ma.” In contrast to his name, he moved gingerly through the shop, edging between displays as he clutched a go box from Ruby’s Café. “I ate most of the fries on the way.” He didn’t notice Tony standing outside. “Now that the Queen is dead, is all this stuff yours now?” His homely face glowed with delight.

“No.” Bernice took the food box.

“Why not? She’s not going to need it anymore.” Speedy’s eyes moved across Tony’s badge and he stopped smiling.

“It don’t work like that. If Calvin don’t want me to work here, I’m out a job.”

Seeing there was little to learn from Bernice, Tony eased away, leaving mother and son discussing their future prospects, or lack thereof.

After a late dinner, Tony put the last of the clean dishes in the cabinet and turned to face Theo. She looked as tired as he felt. This was the first chance today they’d been able to talk without the boys and their portable antennae, also known as big ears, lurking around. Chris and Jamie had gone to get the dog’s worn tennis ball, and Daisy’s excited barking drowned out every other sound. As curious as he was about Doreen’s apparent murder, the tale he’d heard in Cincinnati haunted him.

Theo poured herself a tall glass of sweet iced tea and strolled onto the front porch. He followed her, wondering how to ask his questions without alarming her.

They sat side-by-side on the top step and watched the boys playing ball with Daisy across the street in the park. It was almost dark. Decorative lights glowed along the walking path and the tiny brown bats began leaving their wooden homes for their insect hunting.

“Tell me what you remember about Vicky Parker.”

“I don’t know I can tell you much.” Clearly curious, Theo didn’t ask him to explain. “She and her father moved here for a little while. They lived with her uncle. You know him. Her uncle is Nelson Parker.”

“Yes, I do know him, at least by sight. He’s the old recluse who has the place up past Nina’s. He comes into town about twice a year and never causes any trouble.” Tony thought the man was maybe fifty-five. He looked a hundred. He had no visible teeth, and that made his lips and gums sink into his face like those on a dried apple doll. Tony pulled his lips over his teeth and smacked his fake gums together. Leaning closer to his wife, he panted softly. “Give us a kiss, pretty girl.”

Theo dissolved into a fit of the giggles. “That’s him, all right. However, he does wear his store-bought teeth on ceremonial occasions.”

“I thought he lived alone up there.” Tony’s eyes drifted to the dark mass of the mountains.

“Well, he probably does now.” Theo pushed her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose. “Vicky and her father didn’t live there fulltime. They would arrive for a few months and then be gone for several years. I don’t think Vicky and her father stayed up there very often after you moved away.”

“Any idea where they moved to? Or where they moved from, for that matter.” Tony doubted his own choice of residence had any effect on the Parkers.

“No.”Theo turned to face him. “You ought to ask your mom. Since they joined your dad’s congregation, he might have learned that and passed the information on to her. I do remember Vicky liked you, a lot, and she spent quite a bit of time hanging out, watching you.” She gave him a sparkling grin that made him feel warm and safe. Her next words spoiled that effect. “When you left for the Navy, she talked about you at Sunday school, you know, like the two of you were engaged. No one believed her. Not really.”

Tony couldn’t suppress a shiver and lifted his eyes to watch the boys. They took turns throwing the ball to each other and then for the dog, sending the big retriever diving into the shrubs. He hadn’t told Theo what he’d learned from Harrison, but he would eventually. He also believed Harrison’s version of events right down to the last words of the letter.